Chinese hacker guilty of $100 million software piracy

Xiang Li probably thought that he had a pretty sweet life. He managed to crack all sorts of expensive commercial software, which he sold on his website, Crack99.com. It’s the kind of activity that any US citizen would be crazy to even attempt, but since Li lived in Sichuan, China, it was pretty easy for him to evade American scrutiny.

Unfortunately for him, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) decided to track him down anyway. Undercover ICE agents lured him to the remote US territory of the Northern Mariana Islands where they pretended to buy counterfeit software from Li, but instead ended up arresting him.

Since then, they received a warrant and have poured through 25,000 emails from Li’s Gmail account. According to ICE, Li sold pirate versions of software that was used for industrial and governmental purposes like aerospace simulation, computer-aided manufacturing, and defense systems. Li had verifiable records of collecting at least $60,000 in sales of the bootleg products to US customers. The commercial value of these products is, of course, much greater.

At least two of Li’s customers were also incriminated as part of the investigation. NASA engineer Cosburn Wedderburn, and US defense contractor Wronald Best, have pleaded guilty to copyright infringement after they knowingly bought pirated software from Li — software that should have collectively cost them nearly $2 million. Cosburn and Wedderburn represent just a couple of the more than 325 buyers who found their way to Li’s website between 2008 and 2011. His reach spanned not just to the US, but several other continents as well. His pirate software ring was detailed in a PDF file released by ICE.

Li faces up to a $250,000 fine in addition to as many as 25 years in prison. ICE officials called it one of the “most significant” copyright infringement cases it has ever uncovered, so don’t expect him to to walk away with just a slap on the wrist.